The Marlins are returning to South Florida from a (8-5) road trip. The Fish finished the weekend splitting a rain-shortened two game set. Neither Roy Oswalt nor Cole Hamels could hang on to notch win to their season records. The Marlins can be happy that they’re coming to the home with the best bullpen in baseball. They were able to split a series without starts from Josh Johnson or Ricky Nolasco. In the department of offense, Florida’s feisty lineup seems far from reaching its full potential. The Marlins have managed only 8 homeruns this season (10th in the National League). Half of them have been hit by Logan Morrison. Gaby Sanchez continues to produce multi-hit games and leads the team with a (.340) batting average. While that duo is holding strong, the combination of Hanley Ramirez and Mike Stanton haven’t been pulling their weight.

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Chris Coghlan got going on the road trip, but how long before Stanton & Ramirez start rolling?

Over the weekend the duo combined to go 2 for 14 with 1 RBI. This is all while the team’s leadoff hitter, Chris Coghlan put together a road trip in which he hit (.323) raising his season average nearly forty points. One has to wonder how long it will take for Stanton to get his timing down. After almost missing all of spring training and 6 games of the regular season, Stanton hasn’t seen the neat the amount of pitching the rest of his teammates have. He has a week of starts under his belt, with has 11 strikeouts. Only Coghlan has struck out more this season (13) but he has twice the number of plate appearances. Hanley Ramirez also remains pedestrian. Hanley hasn’t hit a homerun since September 6th, 2010. He hasn’t gone deep all season, including the spring. Before the year Ramirez stressed how he wanted to get off to a fast start. Well the days of April are passing him by and the shortstop remains homerless and with a slugging percentage lower than Coghlan and John Buck. Marlins fans are dying to see the power display from Stanton and Ramirez that was projected before the season began. No doubt that those two are ready to start hitting them off and over the wall. The Marlins return to Miami with an (8-6) record and a three game series with the Pirates awaiting them on Tuesday.